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Dryer troubles
We have a stackable washer dryer that will not run using shore power. If the generator is running the dyer works fine.
Both incoming shore power legs have about 120 volts. To test both legs the inverters were turned off. All three roof A/Cs work. The two buner cook top works. The other items that the inverters do not power, 3 kick toe heaters and disposal, all work when using shore power as well as using the generator. The dryer has 120 volts on both legs using shore power but will not run. I have checked all the connecttions in the beaker box as well as in the box for the dryer plug. Cleaned the spades on the shore power plug. Any ideas
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8 Replies
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Larry,
Were the inverters turned “on” while the gen was running? If you turn the inverters on while on shore power, does that change anything?
Mine is 3 years older than yours, but the only thing on the inverter legs on mine are aux compressor, fridge, micro, port and starboard power outlets. Just trying to think through what you have going on and surely your dryer wouldn’t be wired to the inverter circuits. Is the dryer 110 or 220?
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That is a question that sounds as though it has no answer. If both shore power and generator power supply voltage to the 120 / 240 VAC circuits there should be no reason why the dryer works on one and not the other.
It seems if one works and the other doesn’t the problem would be at the transfer switch, but since all circuits except the dryer are powered on both sources something doesn’t make sense. When you say you checked connections did you look at them physically or did you put a multi-tester on them?
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Thanks for the replies. I have checked all the wiring connections in the breaker panel, the back of the dryer and at the bow the dryer plugs into with both a multi-meter and the tightness of all the screws plus looking for any stuff growing in the connections. The dryer works on generator power with the inverters off or on. It also will not work on shore power with the inverters off or on.
The transfer switch is next on my list. I have a hunch it may be the problem. -
110 or 220?
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The dryer has 220 volts wired to it. The reason I say 220 and not 110 is Pat thinks it is a very slow to dry clothes.
I just checked the power transfer box. There is 120 volts on each incoming leg and 120 volts on each outgoing leg on shore power and 220 when checking the legs together. All the connections are tight and clean. I did not do a complete check on the genarator side of the transfer box as the problem is with shore power. My next step is to replace the dyer 220 volt breaker in breaker box. If this does not fix it my next step is to run some jumper wire to the dryer to eliminate the coach wiring to see if that works,
This problem is beyond my basic understanding of chasing sparks.
The dryer is the only electrical item that does not work with shore power in all the coach. Every thing works including the dryer with generator power. -
I have found the problem. When Royale (Monaco) wired the dryer they used a 2 conductor wire plus a ground wire. The ground wire is hooked to the ground bus not the neutral bus. The controls for the dryer require the neutral to work. I jumped the 2 busses together the dryer worked. If the rv pedestal is set up with both the ground and neutral hooked together the dryer would work. If the ground is seperated from the neutral the dryer will not work. This is the way both of my 50 amp hookups are wired. This explains why the dryer worked with generator power. I installed a ground rod on each of my pedestals to seperate the ground and neutral. I wanted the coach to be grounded to the earth not the neutral 60 feet away in the house panel.
To fix the problem we can only park in the states that do not require the ground and neutral to be separate.
Now to correct my dryer problem is moving the dryer ground wire from the ground buss to the neutral buss.
In our 6 plus years owning the Royale last summer in a rv park in New York was the first time this problem came up. I suppose it will be as safe as I can make it grounding the dryer to the neutral buss. There is another ground wire, green with yellow stripe, Royale installed. I can’t see how it is routed with out moving the washer-dryer combo out. I am not up to this. I will assume it is a good groung. The upside is I know all the wiring in the panel is good. -
My former company produced power outlets for RVs under its name as well as privately labeling them for other “manufacturers”. We never shipped any with “bonded” neutrals, although all were shipped with the means to tie the neutral and ground together.
The local codes always determined if the installer was to tie the two together.
Based on your description every Royale has this situation.
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Jon
I think you are correct that all Royales may have this issue. A couple of solutions. Run the generator to wash and dry your laundry, only use rv parks with bonded neutral and ground or do as I am going to do change the wiring. It surprises me we have traveled from coast to coast in our Royale begining in early 2006. The dryer not working happened in late summer 2011. Quess we always had bonded hookups.
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